5.  The applicant was born in 1941 and lives in Vojnić.
6.  In 1980 the applicant became the holder of a specially protected tenancy (stanarsko pravo) of a flat in Vojnić. He lived in the flat with his family until 1 October 1991 when Vojnić was occupied. He then fled the occupying forces and went to live in Karlovac.
7.  The applicant found a job in Karlovac and, as an internally displaced person, on 30 January 1992 he was awarded a flat there on a temporary basis. In July 1996 the competent authorities terminated his status as an internally displaced person. Following a civil action by Mr T.M., the applicant was forced to leave the flat in Karlovac on 21 January 1999.
8.  The applicant claimed that – following the military operation “Storm” by which Croatia regained control of almost its entire territory in August 1995 – on 8 October 1995 he had visited Vojnić, where he had found the flat in respect of which he had the specially protected tenancy uninhabitable and in a very bad state of repair. This had been confirmed on 4 March 1996 by the findings of the Commission for the Assessment of War Damage. He further submitted that he had immediately commenced rebuilding work on the flat with a view to moving into it.
9.  However, on 23 August 1996, while the applicant was working in Karlovac, the local authorities, accompanied by the police, entered into the flat, made a list of personal belongings, changed the locks and gave the keys of the flat to a certain Z.H., a local policeman. Five days later the Commission for Temporary Takeover and Use of Certain Property of the Municipality of Vojnić (Komisija za privremeno preuzimanje i korištenje određene imovine Općine Vojnić – “the Sequestration Commission”) issued a decision letting the flat to Z.H. and his family on a temporary basis.
10.  On 20 December 1996 the applicant and his wife made a request for the purchase of the flat to the Municipality of Vojnić. In doing so they relied on the Specially Protected Tenancies (Sale to Occupier) Act, which entitled holders of specially protected tenancies of flats in social or state ownership to purchase their flats under favourable conditions (see paragraph 29 below). They received no reply.
11.  On 7 August 1998 the Ministry of Reconstruction and Development (Ministarstvo razvitka i obnove) adopted a decision letting the flat to Z.H. and his family for their use.
12.  On 16 October 2000 the Municipality of Vojnić issued a decision allowing the applicant to live in the flat. The applicant has been living in the flat ever since.
13.  Meanwhile, on 12 May 2000, the applicant and his wife brought a civil action against the State in the Vojnić Municipal Court (Općinski sud u Vojniću) with a view to obtaining a judgment which would allow them to purchase the flat in accordance with the Specially Protected Tenancies (Sale to Occupier) Act. On 9 January 2001 the court dismissed their action. It found that the applicant's flat was owned by the State and not the Municipality of Vojnić and that therefore the plaintiffs should have directed their request for its purchase to the State and not to the Municipality. Following an appeal by the applicant and his wife, on 26 September 2001 the Karlovac County Court (Županijski sud u Karlovcu) quashed the first-instance judgment and remitted the case. It found, inter alia, that the fact that the plaintiffs had made their request for the purchase of the flat to the Municipality and not the State should not have been held against them.
14.  In the resumed proceedings, on 11 September 2003 the Vojnić Municipal Court again dismissed the plaintiffs' action. The court first determined, as a preliminary issue, whether the plaintiffs had retained their specially protected tenancy of the flat in Vojnić, the existence of that tenancy being a statutory precondition for buying the flat under the Sale to Occupier Act. In this respect the court found that: (a) the plaintiffs had left the flat in October 1991 and (b) in the period between 5 August 1995, when Vojnić was liberated, and 23 August 1996, when the flat was awarded to Z.H., they had been living in Karlovac and had only occasionally visited and used the flat in Vojnić. That being so, the court concluded that since they had not used their flat permanently for living purposes, the plaintiffs' specially protected tenancy had been terminated. Consequently, they were not entitled to purchase the flat in question.
15.  On 18 February 2004 the Karlovac County Court dismissed the plaintiffs' appeal and upheld the first-instance judgment, which thereby acquired the force of res judicata. Relying on the finding of the first-instance court that the plaintiffs had left the flat in 1991 and had not used it in the period between 5 August 1995 and 23 August 1996, the second-instance court expressly referred to section 2 of the Act on the Lease of Flats on the Liberated Territory (see paragraph 19 below) in holding that the plaintiffs' specially protected tenancy had been terminated ex lege because after the Act's entry into force they had not used their flat for a period longer than ninety days. As a result, they had no right to purchase it.
16.  The applicant then lodged a constitutional complaint alleging, inter alia, infringements of his constitutional rights to equality before the law, to property and to a fair hearing.
17.  On 29 June 2006 the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske) dismissed the constitutional complaint and served its decision on the applicant on 20 July 2006. The relevant part of the Constitutional Court's decision reads as follows:
“The [ordinary] courts established that the flat at issue in Vojnić had on 28 August 1996 been awarded to [Z.H.] for temporary use, and that the plaintiffs had in the period between August 1995 and 28 August 1996 only occasionally visited the flat, which could not be considered use of the flat. The first-instance court therefore dismissed the plaintiff's action in accordance with section 2 of the Act on the Lease of Flats on the Liberated Territory, according to which the specially protected tenancy of flats located in the previously occupied, now liberated, territory of the Republic of Croatia was to be terminated by the operation of law if the holder of the specially protected tenancy left the flat and did not use it for a period exceeding 90 days following the Act's entry into force. The court established that the complainant had not used the flat between August 1995 and 28 August 1996 and that his specially protected tenancy had [therefore] been terminated by the operation of law. Given that his specially protected tenancy had been terminated by the operation of law after 5 January 1996, the complainant could no longer be considered the holder of a specially protected tenancy and therefore was not entitled to make a request for the purchase of the flat.
The County Court found that the first-instance judgment was correct and had been rendered on the basis of correctly and completely established facts and the correct application of the substantive law.
Assessing the arguments raised in the constitutional complaint in the light of Article 14 paragraph 2 of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court has found that the complainant's constitutional right to equality before the law was not breached by the contested judgments.
The legal views expressed in the contested judgments are based on the correct application of the relevant substantive law and on the constitutionally acceptable interpretation of that law. The Constitutional Court finds that the [ordinary] courts, relying on the facts established in the proceedings, gave reasons for their views expressed in the contested decisions, which undoubtedly do not result from the arbitrary interpretation or application of the relevant substantive law.
...
The content of the constitutional right to a fair hearing guaranteed by Article 29 paragraph 1 of the Constitution is limited to procedural guarantees of a fair hearing. Therefore, assessing the arguments raised in the constitutional complaint in the light of that constitutional right, as well as other constitutional rights guaranteed by Article 29 of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court examines possible procedural breaches in the proceedings before the courts and, on that basis and looking at the proceedings as a whole, ascertains whether the proceedings were conducted in a manner which secured a fair hearing to the complainant.
Having examined the contested decisions and the first-instance case file, the Constitutional Court finds that the complainant's constitutional right guaranteed by Article 29 paragraph 1 of the Constitution has not been breached.
As regards the complainant's argument concerning the breach of the constitutional right of ownership guaranteed by Article 48 paragraph 1 of the Constitution, it has to be noted that the Constitutional Court, on the basis of Article 48 of the Constitution, protects the right of ownership at the constitutional level in such a manner that it prevents restriction or taking of that right by the state authorities, unless a restriction or taking is provided for by law.
The Constitutional Court finds that the contested judgments are based on the relevant legislation and are well reasoned, and that the complainant's right of ownership guaranteed by Article 48 of the Constitution has not been breached.”